


On The Fly

by jehans



Series: devil gonna follow me e'er i go [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Dust Bowl, Freighthopping, Gen, M/M, Train Hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:19:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehans/pseuds/jehans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan’s heart is beating hard and Feuilly’s hand is wrapped protectively around his wrist as they watch four forms slip into the car and slide the door shut. Neither had noticed the train stop in their sleep, they hadn’t even realized there was another crew change before Amarillo. Feuilly’s fingers tighten on Jehan’s wrist. They’re careful not to run in with other travelers, they know that people like them — made desperate by the dust and poverty, made weary by the rails — can easily resort to violence, even unprovoked. And now they’re outnumbered two to one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Fly

There are days when the air is so thick, it feels like you’re drowning. And you are; people drown in this air. They cough and gasp and ache for real air, but it’s all dust. There’s nothing on earth that isn’t covered in this dust, and if Jehan had words in his heart still, he would wax poetic about it.

But his words dried up with the land and now they, too, are dust.

There isn’t water in which to soak the fabric, but still he wears scarves around his nose and mouth and throat. A lame effort to keep out the particles that settled inside his parents’ lungs and choked them, drowned them, left him alone. The edges of the scarves are frayed, the fabric beige where it once had been red or blue, maybe purple, he can’t remember anymore. But it doesn’t matter, he wears them nonetheless. Anything to try to keep out the infernal dust.

Feuilly is out of breath when he appears and drops down next to Jehan, thrusting a hard loaf of bread and a small jar into his hands, and Jehan takes just one moment to remember he’s not _really_ alone. Not as long as Feuilly’s here. They grew up together, playing in grass that used to be and building their lives around each other. When Feuilly’s mother, who had been left long ago by the man she’d loved, had fallen in the river and never emerged, Jehan’s parents had taken Feuilly in and their bond grew strong.

“What’s in the jar?” Jehan asks, yanking his scarf down to talk and pulling his pack onto his lap to stuff the jar and the day-old bread inside.

Feuilly shrugs, peering over the low wall they’re hiding behind at the train sitting on the track in the rail yard. “Honey?” he guess. “Jam maybe. I don’t know, it’s all I could get with the ration stamps.”

Jehan nods. “We should try to pick up some salted meat or something at the next place.”

“If we can find any,” Feuilly agrees. “The train gonna move soon?”

“That’s what I heard,” Jehan confirms. “We’re gonna have to catch it on the fly.”

Feuilly frowns and wets his chapped lips, sitting down again. “And you’re sure it’s empty?”

“Of course not,” Jehan laughs.

Feuilly grunts and continues to frown.

“Hungry?” Jehan asks him, but he shakes his head.

“I’ll eat on the train.”

They lapse into silence for a while, Feuilly listening for the sounds of the crew change, and Jehan listening to the sound of Feuilly’s breath.

In. Out. In. Out.

It’s comforting.

It’s air.

After a time, Feuilly’s breath hitches and Jehan’s eyes open.

“Time to go.”

Catching a train on the fly is dangerous, and they know the risks. They know how to do this well, and they know how it feels when one of them does it wrong — when there’s blood seeping through fingers and spilling onto the floor of some boxcar, when it won’t stop and neither can they, when ripped, filthy rags are all they have to stem the flow and no one gets any sleep because they fear the reaper may come too soon.

They’ve got the scar above Jehan’s left ear to remind them what that’s like. Not that either will forget about it.

Not that they’ll ever let it happen again.

It only takes a few seconds for a train to pick up speed, so they have less time than that to make it to the cars and catch hold, swinging themselves up. Feuilly gets there first, grabs hold of the door on the car Jehan picked out, and yanks it open. Jehan is right behind him and he reaches back to take hold of him, too, to swing him up into the car, but Jehan is faster and just jumps, flies through the air and into the car, bashing his shin against the floor as he does.

Feuilly flings himself up too, and Jehan reaches out to help pull him in. Then they’re swinging the car door shut behind them and no one is bleeding, no bones are cracked. Jehan holds his shin against himself as he waits for the ache to subside, but they’re all right. Feuilly laughs in relief.

He falls to his knees in front of Jehan in the empty car. “You all right?” he asks, and Jehan nods. Then, suddenly, Feuilly’s lips are on Jehan’s, his hand on the back of Jehan’s head, and Jehan can taste the triumph on his tongue.

 

_“How does it even work?” Feuilly asks, dragging one finger through the dirt and keeping his eyes fixed on the line he makes like he’s embarrassed for asking. “Why is it such a big deal?”_

_Jehan reaches up to push his hair out of his eyes so he can keep watching the clouds. His mother is dead set on giving him a haircut, but truth be told he likes it long. “You put your mouth on someone else’s,” he says in response to Feuilly’s first question. “It ain’t supposed to be that hard.”_

_Fourteen-year-old Feuilly shoots him an unamused look and Jehan giggles._

_“I hear it’s nice?” he offers._

_But Feuilly sighs. “I wouldn’t know,” he says bitterly._

_Jehan sits up, propping himself up on his elbows, and looks directly at his best friend. “Do you want to try it?” he asks seriously. “You could do it to me.”_

_The way Feuilly looks at him, it’s like he just offered to kill someone for him, and it makes Jehan laugh again._

_“I promise I won’t fall in love with you,” Jehan says wryly._

_Neither are prepared for the way their lips fit together like they were created for this._

 

When Feuilly pulls away, Jehan grins at him. Jehan may like boys the way he’s supposed to like girls, but Feuilly isn’t made like him. The kissing just sort of happened, and both of them liked it too much to stop. It’s how they express themselves to each other when words don’t work, how they comfort and reassure, how they strengthen their bond. And Jehan will kiss anyone if he likes them, but he likes kissing Feuilly best. Feuilly is all he really has.

“I’m hungry now,” Feuilly says, still smiling at their success.

Jehan laughs and shoves his pack in his best friend’s direction.

It turns out the tiny jar is full of honey, which makes the hard bread just slightly easier to down. They’re almost out of water, which is unfortunate, but neither of them are unfamiliar with the pains of dehydration, and they’ll deal with it until they can find a tap somewhere.

Jehan never eats very much, but Feuilly would probably eat a whole cow if he could, so when Jehan is done, he leans back until his head is resting on Feuilly’s lap. “Where does this one go?” he asks, his voice betraying his exhaustion.

“Amarillo,” Feuilly says around a mouthful. Jehan groans, but Feuilly’s free hand finds its way into his hair and he continues, “We’ll switch there and head to Santa Fe.”

“We’re never gonna get out,” Jehan mumbles. It’s all dust, the world is dust.

“I hear Santa Fe is clean,” Feuilly promises. “They say it’s clean.”

Jehan doesn’t say anything, because he knows better. Nothing, not one damn thing in this world is clean.

Even Feuilly is covered in dust.

They have a routine — as much as they can have, anyway, with their lives the way they are, and after Feuilly finishes off the loaf of bread, they curl around each other, using the other’s body as pillow and blanket both, and let the sway of the train rock them to sleep.

Feuilly’s fingers stay in Jehan’s hair all night.

 

Judging by the low-hanging moon that shines on them as they’re both awoken, it’s deep into the early morning when the car door suddenly slides open. Jehan and Feuilly both spring to a crouch like startled cats, slipping back as far as they can into the shadows of the car.

Jehan’s heart is beating hard and Feuilly’s hand is wrapped protectively around his wrist as they watch four forms slip into the car and slide the door shut. Neither had noticed the train stop in their sleep, they hadn’t even realized there was another crew change before Amarillo. Feuilly’s fingers tighten on Jehan’s wrist. They’re careful not to run in with other travelers, they know that people like them — made desperate by the dust and poverty, made weary by the rails — can easily resort to violence, even unprovoked. And now they’re outnumbered two to one.

“Do we have anything to eat?” one of the newcomers is asking quietly, but he’s violently hushed by another.

“We don’t know if we’re alone.” It sounds like a woman.

“Oh, come on,” the first one hisses, “we’re alone.”

“I’m not sure about that,” a third responds, but he speaks at a normal volume. “I hear breathing.”

“Yes, we’re all breathing —“

“Not you, Courfeyrac. Who’s there?” the third voice asks out toward where Jehan and Feuilly are hiding.

Feuilly’s fingers constrict even more, but Jehan reaches over with his other hand and squeezes Feuilly’s arm reassuringly.

“You first,” Jehan calls out bravely.

A match flares, and then a lantern is being lit, barely illuminating a few faces.

“My name is Combeferre,” the third voice calls out. “I’m here with my traveling companions, Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Éponine. We’re not looking for trouble.”

Feuilly grabs at Jehan as he moves, but Jehan is quick, and he’s crawling out into the light before Feuilly can stop him.

“I’m Jehan,” he says simply. He’s not going to introduce Feuilly, not if he doesn’t want to be introduced.

But of course, Feuilly is already at his elbow, stating his own name.

Combeferre smiles, dimly lit by the lantern. “It’s nice to meet you,” he says gently. “I understand if you just want to sleep, but if we can offer you anything — food, water — we’d be happy to share.”

Jehan and Feuilly exchange a look. _Water._ But Feuilly shakes his head almost imperceptibly and Jehan’s eyebrows knit together a little.

“We promise, we just want to help if we can,” the first voice calls out, clearly catching this little exchange. “We’re all the same, we know how hard this is.”

He’s obscured in shadow, too far away from the light to see, but there’s an honesty in his voice that Jehan really wants to believe.

Feuilly sighs a little and nods.

“We don’t have water,” Jehan lets out in a rush, and almost immediately, a canteen is being thrust into his hands by the young woman. Éponine.

He yanks his scarf down and drinks more deeply and eagerly than he means to, already feeling the ache in his head that comes with the lack of water. When he’s had just enough to stave off dehydration, he shoves the canteen at Feuilly, who attacks it as well.

In the meantime, Combeferre has set the lantern down on the floor and raised the light enough that they can see each other.

Combeferre is tall and lean and dark-skinned, hands weathered and worn, a remarkable dignity lighting his face. Éponine is scrawny and loose-limbed and probably Hispanic, a contrast to the very pale, blond boy next to her who hasn’t spoken yet. But it’s the boy who spoke first who catches Jehan’s attention.

He’s got a dark kind of auburn hair and a dusting of freckles across his nose. He’s sitting now, but the legs folded up in front of him look long and lean. The honesty in his voice is etched all over his face, too, and he’s smiling at Jehan with a kind of warmth that Jehan hasn’t seen in a long, long time. Not since the dust came.

And he’s dirty, like the rest of them, but somehow he looks clean.

 

_Jehan is pressed up against the wall of the shed behind his parents’ house, one leg wrapped around the boy from down the street, hands fisted in jet-black hair and tongue dragging across the boy’s lower lip, when the shed door opens and he’s suddenly swathed in light._

_It’s in that moment, that he’s sure his life is about to end. In the very real, painful, beaten-to-death kind of way. There’s little ambiguity to what he’s doing here, and people don’t take kindly to boys who try to sleep with other boys._

_But as he jerks away from the boy and the boy yanks away from him, the shed door just shuts again._

_Jehan panics; he thinks this means whoever caught him is off to tell his parents — or the police — so he grips the boy’s arm in a way he hopes is comforting, his own pale fingers now pure white against the boy’s darker skin, and then bolts out of the shed to try to stop whatever is happening._

_When he gets outside, however, there’s a familiar shape grabbing his wrist and pulling him away._

_Feuilly takes him all the way to the treehouse they used to play in as kids and waits until they’re both safely inside it before he speaks._

_When he does, he asks, “How long?”_

_Jehan thinks he knows what Feuilly is asking, so fearfully he squeaks, “Always.”_

_Feuilly nods once. “And you’re sure?”_

_It’s like his heart is sinking through his gut. Jehan nods back._

_“You know you have to be careful, right?” Feuilly asks then and Jehan’s eyes widen._

_“You’re not mad?”_

_Feuilly frowns. “Why would I be mad?” he says. “I’m worried, I ain’t mad.”_

_“But —“ Jehan sputters, “— I mean, ain’t it wrong? Aren’t I wrong?”_

_“Is it what you want?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Then I don’t give a shit about that,” Feuilly says bluntly. “I give a shit about you.”_

 

They don’t swap too many stories — they’re all still a bit guarded — and Combeferre does most of the talking for his group. Apparently, the four of them have only been traveling together fairly recently. Combeferre and Enjolras, the quiet blond, have been together for years, but Éponine and Courfeyrac — that’s his name, the warm one, _Courfeyrac_ — fell in with them only a few weeks ago. They’re all on their way to California to look for work.

To get out of here.

After a bit, Courfeyrac stretches. “I’m beat,” he says. “I think it’s time we get some rest.”

Taking this as a cue, Feuilly pulls Jehan a little away from the light, back to where they were sleeping before. As they settle around each other, Jehan glances back to the others, catching one last glimpse of freckles and warmth before Combeferre snuffs out the lantern.

Feuilly pokes him in the ribs and Jehan snuffles in response. But then Feuilly is shifting until his mouth is next to Jehan’s ear and, his voice covered by the sounds of the train, whispers, “He looks nice.”

Jehan is suddenly very glad for the darkness because he’s pretty sure his face has gone bright red.

But Feuilly isn’t done. “He couldn’t stop looking at you.”

“Shut up,” Jehan hisses back.

Feuilly chuckles a little and shifts again until he’s comfortable and tucked around Jehan again. Jehan turns his face into Feuilly’s ribs. This is terrible timing, and he has no idea if Courfeyrac is even interested in men, and he can’t get involved, not with someone who might not even be headed to the same place he is.

But somehow he can’t stop himself from smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> [come say hi on tumblr!](jehans.tumblr.com)


End file.
